July - in a montage (or 2 or 3!)

I've been gardening today and apart from feeling absolutely shattered I am happy happy happy (can you tell?!!). 

Years ago, Himself and I were watching some  mindless American sitcom (the name and story line have deservedly faded into history) but we do  remember one sentence the main protagonist said and it was..... 

I am very tired - but it is a good tired! 

Any way, in the spirit being on hols, I shall do a July round up in a trio of montages!!

Firstly - a mix-up of garden and garden festival pictures, the garden - despite my work-induced neglect - looked good but not good enough to win anything, but the boys did well both winning a second place in their catagories. 

Our knit and natter group took over a huge area in the local church and we displayed both flowers and our work and received loads of lovely lovely comments.

We managed to squeeze in a lot of family and friends time in between work and sleep - Youngest finished junior school (a mixture of sadness and glee) and won the Technical Cup which took us all by surprise and delight!!  

Our blondies (young hens) are growing both in size and friendliness - they don't get much choice with the friendliness as they are regularly seen firmly tucked under a boy's armpit (poor chooks). 

A tree house has been built and now is the centre of many a boy-game or just gentle contemplating of life as they lie on their backs and watch the sky. 

My Dad celebrated his birthday (from last year!!) with a helicopter flight and we went along to watch and share, we also took a picnic and spent a lovely day enjoying the sunshine and family. 

Poor old giddy dog has had more than her fair share (as she thinks) of baths recently as the boys have discovered the 'delights' of washing her in the wheelbarrow.....they fill it up with tepid water and she hops in (well she is instructed to jump in and she so well trained she does, despite really really not wanting to!) then she is lathered up until she looks like a meringue, rinsed and dried and then all three of them play up and down the lane until she is dry. 

Youngest has rediscovered his camera (strangely it 'appeared' in the greenhouse....) and has been taking photos of EVERYTHING! 

Our veg garden is doing us proud, we are harvesting a goodly amount for such a small space. Yesterday I lifted all the garlic and they are now drying. 

The black kale and the Chinese mustard have been featuring heavily in our 'garden soups' and the onions are excellent and won't be long before I have to lift those too. 

Our peas, although only a few plants - gamely gave us just enough to have as mange tout initially then peas in salads latterly while the butter beans have been delish raw as well as being chucked in soups. 

The potatoes are still quietly growing and I haven't had an investigation yet but the tomatoes and courgettes in the greenhouse are the best we have had so far. We've picked tomatoes every second day and have them in lunch boxes, in salads and on picnics.  The beetroot have been a bit of an experiment - usually I plant them individually and allow to swell, but this year somebody on television (for the life of me I can't remember if it was a chef who gardened or a gardener who cooked) said to leave them in little bunches and lift a whole bunch at a time and they are sweeter and cook quicker. They do cook quicker, but they are definitely fiddly to deal with - so the jury is still out. 

Leeks are growing nicely and the rhubarb is now resting after providing it's first good crop - it is still a young plant and I didn't want to frighten it too much!

Eldest's wheel barrow entry to the garden festival is providing us with salad and herbs on a daily basis - it has been so so successful that I will encourage him to do it again as it has turned out to be so productive!

Well, that's just a little taster of our July - not a lot was done, but so much happened! 

Tomorrow is the 1st of August - can you believe it?? This year has flown by - it will be Youngest birthday at the end of the month - it doesn't seem so long ago he was just a tot :).

Tomorrow we are celebrating our day by going off to the local tea rooms for the obligatory carrot cake and tea then for a walk to return for the boys to wallow indulgently in the huge paddling pool Himself bought for them today - we may have to crack the ice of the top first and beat back a polar bear or two....!

Right I am off to bed! G'night!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

ooh it's lovely to be back :)

July - nearly gone

July...........

Days have melted into one long working week,
nights gone in a blink of an unsleeping eye.

Things promised undone.

Demanding, wheedling folk day in and day out.

Dustbunnies*
abound,
unfettered,
unchecked
free and happily breeding.

Still finding time for
birthday bashes,
birthday teas,
family
friends

Squashing in stolen moments of brief solitude in my summer-fat garden

Squinting through weary eyes at a bleary computer screen
trying to perfect a secret project **

No crochet - no time
No walking - no time
No housework - no worries

I will be glad when July is done - because I am ***

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* Dustbunnies - those 'delightful' little clumps of dog hair and house dust that lurk in corners and multiply in a blink of an eye. The ones that whirl across the floor like a Sergio Leone tumbleweed.

** Secret Project - something new and exciting but still super secret - sshhhhh will tell you soon

*** One more day then I have two glorious weeks off - and I just can't wait!!

Hello - remember me?

No - I haven't run away (although I have seriously considered running off to the coast), nor I haven't given up blogging and no I haven't lost my blogging mojo either.

What I do have however,  is serious amounts of double shifts at work followed by serious amounts of being overtired with generous smatterings of lack of energy and excessive amounts of too much else needs doing....!!

I do miss your company, I do miss sharing your daily wafflings as much as I miss waffling with you - but hang in there - I will be back coz and I can't wait!

Speak soon and have yourselves a lovely weekend - in which I will try and catch up with some sleeeeeeep :)

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One White Foot -

Over Easter we were staying near Appleby in Westmoreland, the site of the Appleby Horse Fair, and wherever we looked, we saw horses. I have always loved horses and as a child fantasied about being able to ride bare backed, with my hair and the horse's mane flying, across vast tracts of land. As an adult (before children) I owned - firstly a driving pony called Oliver who had a personality bigger than his short stature and later a rather stupid chestnut with a ridiculous phobia of sparrows and sheep - I didn't keep him long as where we live, sheep and sparrows are a-plenty!

 One little saying that often runs through my head when I am looking at horses is 'One White Foot' which an old proverb about horse trading and it goes thus.

One white foot - buy him

Two white feet - try him

Three white feet - look well about him

Four white feet - go without him

From anecdotal research (I for years worked as a veterinary nurse) it appeared that there is an historic belief that white hooves were 'softer', more prone to cracking therefore rendering the horse as a liability rather than an asset and the black or darker hooves were harder and therefore stronger. 

The colouring of hooves is dictated primarily by the horse's pigmentation and both hoof colours can experience problems of splitting or cracking just as we either suffer or revel in our own finger nails (or in my case - the lack of them!)

But I find something charming about four white stocking legs - and the little chestnut pony was quite startled when I took his picture, as you can tell by the look on his face! 

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to dry Eldest's PE kit shirt with the hair dryer and get it to him in time for his PE lesson ....... no, please don't ask....

Have yourselves a lovely weekend, coz I certainly intend to!! 

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Random madness -

Have you ever had one of those moments, when you walk in and look at something and it is so odd that you don't even notice...................

Apparently all four of them were watching 'Shaun the Sheep' on tv.



My children levitate - can yours?

I have a hot dog with a foot long tongue.........

Talk about the hard sell........................no pressure then?

My life - in pictures - and yours?

*sigh*

Goosey Goosey Gander....................

Another nursery rhyme that I love as it rolls off my tongue is Goosey Goosey Gander. It is one that can be chanted and skipped to or one that can be said with malice and intent. 

Childhood nursery rhyme books had pretty little drawings of geese, languishing women and comical men tripping down stairs. It is only as an adult I discovered some of the historical meanings behind the accident-prone old man and the  goose wandering around a woman's bedroom!

Goosey Goosey Gander whither shall I wander,

Upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber

There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,  

I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

Again a rhyme filled with history and representation, the earliest form is thought to date back to the 16th century.  

The lady's chamber mentioned refers to a room known as a 'Solar' which was an area in a castle that was used by the lord or lady as a bedroom. Originally it had been part of the hall  which was partitioned off from the hoi polloi to allow some privacy. 

During the 16th century, Catholic priests would have to hide to avoid persecution, performing ceremonies is secrecy within private households. Within these houses were built 'Priest Holes' which were bolt holes in which, during a zealous search, the priest could hide. 

It is thought that the reference to 'an old man who wouldn't say his prayers' is a Catholic priest praying (in forbidden Latin and not in English) with the lady of the household in the Solar. The line with the old man being thrown down the stairs by his 'left-leg' is also an indicator that he was a Catholic priest, as a 'left-footer' is used as a religious slur.

Cromwell's soldiers marched in 'goose step' which alludes to the first line of the rhyme. His Roundheads (soldiers) were used to search the houses for Catholic Priests and the line mentioning the man being thrown down stairs is a light reference to the fact both the priest and the family would more than likely be executed for their beliefs. 

Interesting, isn't it? That persecution, execution, subversion and suppression can be chanted happily by children without even knowing the origins!

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Also interesting is that recently friends decided to re-decorate their kitchen. This entailed pulling out the old units which exposed the original stone wall and plaster. Having done so, they discovered a part of their wall beneath their stone steps had some sort of secret covering. They knocked it down and discovered a 'man-sized' hole, just enough space to hide.......

Final bit of waffle - that photograph - I suffered..for..my..art..with..

those..birds.They insisted that I was worthy of a breakfast. Ouch.

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** My information has been garnered over the years, from books, the tinter, from amateur research and general curiosity - there is a lot more out there and this is only what I have learnt and discovered, if you know of a different version or slant, I would love to hear it. I am not out to offend any one!!

Garden festival

Last weekend was an exhausting culmination of a frantic couple of weeks. I had promised Himself that I would not enter the garden festival again, but more fool me, I did. The boys were more than happy to join in and threw themselves into their own competition entries.

The weather was glorious! The boys did well, both getting second in their division and considering they were competing alongside adults we thought that was brilliant!




Eldest's edible container had parsley, chives, radish, a sunflower, a french been, strawberries, Chinese mustard and origanum.


My photo doesn't really do it justice as I had to step back a fair way to get the sunflower in.

Youngest's little Dogmatix was a hit with the younger generation and again did very well against an adult competitor.

He was however driven to distraction by adults who insisted calling his scarecrow - Dog Matrix - his whole little body bristled with indignation at their apparent ignorance of one of his favourite book characters!



His best moment was when a lady from Australia wanted to take lots of pictures of his little dog and chatted for ages about it to him.


Our knit and (k)natter group at the last minute decided to put in a flower display in the Church.  So I was given free range of gardens and flowers, props and crafted items from the ladies. ON Friday, my Mom and I (and my long suffering Dad) with legs buckling under the weight of all the goodies set off to do our arrangement.

We had to be as quick as we could as we only had just over 2 hours before I had to get ready for work.

We worked like demons. There was such a flurry of flower arranging, teddy positioning and quilt and blanket fluffing.  Everything that was potentially easy to steal, we stitched down, just in case, I would have hated to have lost something one of my friends had made with love, only to find some light fingered soul decided that they wanted it. As it was, the teddies, which had been firmly stitched to their basket, had been pulled out and put back once it was obvious they were not that easy to walk away with!

The mess, the mess  - oh what a veritable compost heap of flowers, leaves and snippings we made along the pews and isle, fortunately the Church steward was incredibly kind and swept up as we went along, supplying us with much needed tea and encouraging  comments. Any way, our arrangement - which was a cheerful, colourful, higglety-pigglety  juxtaposition of craft and flowers - went down incredibly well and we were delighted at the positive response from the visitors.

So thank you ladies for letting me denude your gardens of your flowers and empty your houses of quilts, pillows and blankets!! It was great fun to do :)


I have more photos to share - including one that made us laugh out loud, but I will save that for another day.

Thank you for popping by and have yourselves a lovely Tuesday - I have loved sharing our weekend with you.

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Jack be nimble.....

As a non English***, English speaking person, born and raised in the 'colonies', I find the English language incredibly interesting and quirky. It is a hybrid, a mongrel, a mixture, influenced through time. I love sounding the words in my mouth, I love investigating where words originate from and how they have evolved. I am a closet linguist. As a child was taught and listened to nursery rhymes and later as a mother recited the same rhymes to my children.

So, just for fun, I am going to share some of the things I have discovered............

Jack be nimble

Jack be quick

Jack jump over the candle stick

It seems to be most commonly agreed that Jack was Black Jack, a late 16th century English pirate who was notorious for eluding and escaping from the authorities.

However, the 'jumping over the candle stick' does have several origins accredited to it. Candle leaping was a 'sport' that folk used to play at some English fayres which had developed from an even older game of leaping over fires. This had been considered too dangerous and banned and was subsequently substituted by  candles.

Another theory goes back to lace-making school, where children were used as slave labour,  it was traditional to dance around candlestick used to light their workspace which eventually lead to jumping over the candle.

Candles were incredibly expensive at that time and while the wealthy could afford candles made of beeswax, the poor could only buy the cheaper candles made from tallow (animal fat). These candles gave off a poor light and an unpleasant smell while the very poorest people used rush lights, made by collecting, then peeling off the green outer layer of rushes. The inner tissue was then dipped in to animal fat.

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*** This statement caused a rather heated debate this morning - my heritage is English (as with all colony born people)  - our forefathers(and mothers!) originate from Europe but we tend to be fiercely proud of our country of birth, in my case Africa. Hence me me saying 'As a non English, English speaking person'.

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 This weekend was the village  garden festival, I will share photos and results tomorrow!

Hope your weekend was as sunny and warm as ours was :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx